Chapter One

Charlie shook his head and chuckled good-naturedly as he sat nursing a butterbeer and watch his mother, sister and sister-in-law rush wildly around the kitchen, narrowly avoiding disaster several times. The chaos was not helped by his mother's constant need to kiss him ad babble over having her baby near her again, and Ginny's insistent surprise attack hugs.

"Mum, there's no reason to do anything special, really." Charlie insisted. "At least let me help." His words fell on deaf ears, and the only sign that he'd spoken was Victorie's delighted, high-pitched squeal from his lap. Knowing he was fighting a losing battle as he leaned back in his chair and cuddled his niece against his muscular torso.

"Here for only an hour and already stealing our women." Bill grumbled to Harry as they entered the kitchen, As if on que, Victorie turned to kneel on Charlie's lap and hug him down to hug him tightly around the neck.

"Even my own daughter," Bill whimpered, looking stricken. He shot Charlie a sharp, jealous glare when Charlie folded his arms around the girl and pulled her close, affectionately nuzzling her shoulder. The occupants of the room just ignored the overprotective father with a definite daughter-complex, used to his antics when anything with a Y-chromosome got near his baby girl. Fleur levitated silverware into the two men's hands, and several butterbeer to Charlie and order the three of them to set the table, then go sit out of their way while they finished Charlie's welcome home dinner. With obedience instilled from childhood to listen to the nearly always frightening Weasley women, they stood and entered the dinner room to levitate the platters into place and moved on to the living room to sip their beer and watch Victoire play.

A crash outside cause Charlie to jump and choked mid-sip. Bill casually thumped him on the back. The lack of reaction from the other men proved that no amount of Dragon Wrangling could ever amount to the chaos that was the Burrow.

"Merlin's bloody buttocks!" A slightly familiar and very angry woman's voice rang out Victories giggle and clapped cheerfully, much to the horror of her father.

"'Mione's here." Harry called out lightly. The sound of high heels clicking sharply drew their attention to the front hall. Hermione entered their field of vision. Her hair was wild and was soaking wet, as was her cloak, despite the clear skies outside.

"That's it! Stick a fork in me, cause I'm done! I would sooner mate with a demon than spend another bleeding night in that apartment!"She raged, wringing out her hair. Oblivious to her small audience, she began to peel off her cloak. "Do you have any idea what it's like to walk in to see your date shagging your roommate, who set the date in the first place, on the counter where you've eaten raw fruit off of, just earlier that day? You wouldn't believe what they were doing there. I didn't know people could twist that way… and that should have counted as abusive use of cooking utensils!"

"Err… 'Mione?" Harry called out weakly. All three men were beginning to blush at her sketchy, but yet detailed explanation of what had happened, as well as her increasing state of undress.

"Then they had the nerve to proposition me! Or at least Lavender tried to before she decided to become a drama queen, screaming and flailing around until she hit and broke to sink faucet flooding the kitchen. But did that stop them? Noooooo!" Hermione continued, too worked up to notice what was going on around her. Charlie gulped at the thoughts her story conjured up as well as how close her soaked tee-shirt and jeans hugged her body,

"If you don't stop now you'll be giving a free show or your own." Ginny appeared in the hallway. Grinning, she pointed over to the blushing, enraptured men in the next room over. Her grin became an outright bubble of laughter when Hermione squeaked and blush a red that rivaled her own hair. In true Weasley fashion, she shoved Hermione up the stairs to dry off and put on a change of fresh cloths while she took the old ones and washed and dried them. Silence enveloped the room as the two women climbed the stairs to Ginny's room.

"Oomph," Charlie grunted painfully when his older brother's elbow jabbed him in the side.

"Quite drooling." Bill teased, digging his elbow in harder. Still slightly dazed Charlie swiped the back of his hand over his mouth, further amusing the other occupants of the room.

"She's single you know," Harry murmured around a sip of butterbeer.

"Maybe you and Gin should set her up on a date then." Charlie shot back, not missing a beat. Bill and Harry exchanged secret glances over just how quickly Charlie's answer came.

"La nourriture est prêt!" Fleur's voice rang out summoning the house to the dinner table.